MEMO FROM MAGNIFICENT RAPID

When I arrived at DATCC this morning to take part in Magnificent Weekend not many players can be seen. General thought this is due to some that when to Thailand and some who are soundly slept after taking part few hours earlier in Fadli Tanjung Karang’s chess tournament held from 10pm till 3am! (Yeap, no typo here. 10pm till 3am!...Vintage Fadli).

Man i was wrong...there suddenly appeared “Tanjung Karang’s players” Kamaluddin, Kamal Ariffin, Razali etc. My respect for these guys...they basically have played tournament chess from 10pm a night before and almost not sleep yet....and here they are for another round of chess tournament

Well, those sleepy eyes... good sign there for me! :)

Tournament Proper

Top 4 seeded

1. Hermanu

2. Kamaluddin

3. Kamal Ariffin

4. Ilham

Top 3 Finishers

1. Ilham

2. Kamal Ariffin

3. Hermanu

Sorry guys, since Najib yet to post the full result at chessresult.com...i can only recall above from memory and not usual top 5 Seeded and Top 5 Finishers.

Anecdotes.

1. Only 20 players took part and basically Najib run this tournament at loss. “ Don’t worry” Najib assured players “No matter how many players turn up. I will still run the tournament”

“Janji ditepati” Najib concluded...this election season, of no surprise Najib will be saying this phrase...Albeit different Najib!

2. “...but i cannot run tournament at loss forever” lamented Najib. “There will be limit...” Understand and wish your next tournament a much bigger crowd...and i won’t mentioned sauna or hypothermia...i promised (while raising my right hand) :)

3. Cameo appearance, Jax Tham, Fadli (he is conducting his chess class here) and Mohd Arshad. Arshad can be seen following the afternoon Thailand Open game between Wong Jianwen and GM Mageranto from his laptop.

4. During games, one of player car alarm went off...he went out to his car, fixed it and continued the game. I bet none chess players must surely puzzled...i mean you lose if you handphone emitted soft beep beep sound...but did not lose if your car emitted that 200 decibels sounds!   

5. To celebrate my win (...and RM300 richer!), I and Arshad went to watch The Host at Capsquare’s TGV. Bad mistake...boring like hell...I gave the film 2 stars out of 10.